Bursting flashes freeze splashes of color

Have you ever seen a photographer use flash to freeze BMX bikers mid air? Of course you have. Have you seen splashes of color powder frozen in time? You probably have. But have you ever seen the two styles combined in one? We think not.

Christoph Jorda was born and raised in a small village in the Bavarian Alps. One day when he was a kid, he got a gift from his grandfather – his first camera.

Since then some things have changed, while others have not. Christoph still lives in the same village, and he is as fascinated by the area’s beauty as he was back then. But today Christoph’s hobby has turned into his profession, and the Bavarian Alps have become the scene for his stunning location photography.

A recent photo project saw Christoph collaborate with two close friends – BMX bikers Thomas Kaiser and Konstantin Ottner. The three had the idea to combine BMX shots with the four classical elements – fire, water, earth and air. When the trio reached the fourth and final element, they decided to go out with a bang. With the help of two B1 Off-Camera Flashes and another four friends with large buckets of color powder, the team set out to freeze Thomas and Konstantin midair, jumping through splashes of color.

“The first thing we did was to build the jump and landing,” says Christoph. “This took us almost the whole day. Then we did some tests with flour so that the riders would get used to jumping through powder. After that we were ready to set our lights.”

Christoph wanted the focus to be on the BMX bikers and the color powder. For this reason he decided to have a completely black background in his shots. But the bikers had to see where to jump and land. So even though the shoot took place at night, Christoph and his team had to turn on their car headlights to light up the scene, and use the B1 flashes’ modeling light to light up the actual jump and landing.

“The scene itself was actually very bright during the shoot,” says Christoph. “That’s why it was absolutely necessary to have flash strong enough to overpower the ambient light. It was also important to have with a very short flash duration to freeze the bikers midair. Extremely fast flash recycling was also a must since it allowed me to take several images of each jump and pick the best shot.”

Using two B1 Off-Camera Flashes set to High-Speed Sync Mode and equipped with Zoom Reflectors, Christoph got not one but several best shots. See for yourself.